`We will try to guess tomorrow,' I replied. `In the meantime say nothing to any one of what we have heard and seen.'
`Why not?'
`Because silence is safe, and we have need of safety in this house.'
I sent Laura upstairs immediately, waited a minute to take off my hat and put my hair smooth, and then went at once to make my first investigations in the library, on pretence of searching for a book.
There sat the Count, filling out the largest easy-chair in the house, smoking and reading calmly, with his feet on an ottoman, his cravat across his knees, and his shirt collar wide open. And there sat Madame Fosco, like a quiet child, on a stool by his side, making cigarettes. Neither husband nor wife could, by any possibility, have been out late that evening, and have just got back to the house in a hurry. I felt that my object in visiting the library was answered the moment I set eyes on them.
Count Fosco rose in polite confusion and tied his cravat on when I entered the room.
`Pray don't let me disturb you,' I said. `I have only come here to get a book.'
`All unfortunate men of my size suffer from the heat,' said the Count, refreshing himself gravely with a large green fan. `I wish I could change places with my excellent wife. She is as cool at this moment as a fish in the pond outside.'
The Countess allowed herself to thaw under the influence of her husband's quaint comparison. I am never warm, Miss Halcombe,' she remarked, with the modest air of a woman who was confessing to one of her own merits.
`Have you and Lady Glyde been out this evening?' asked the Count, while I was taking a book from the shelves to preserve appearances.
`Yes, we went out to get a little air.'
`May I ask in what direction?'
`In the direction of the lake -- as far as the boat-house.'
`Aha? As far as the boat-house?'
Under other circumstances I might have resented his curiosity. But tonight I hailed it as another proof that neither he nor his wife were connected with the mysterious appearance at the lake.
`No more adventures, I supPose, this evening?' he went on. `No more discoveries, like your discovery of the wounded dog?'
He fixed his unfathomable grey eyes on me, with that cold, clear, irresistible glitter in them which always forces me to look at him, and always makes me uneasy while I do look. An unutterable suspicion that his mind is prying into mine overcomes me at these times, and it overcame me now.
`No,' I said shortly; `no adventures -- no discoveries.'
I tried to look away from him and leave the room. Strange as it seems, I hardly think I should have succeeded in the attempt if Madame Fosco had not helped me by causing him to move and look away first.
`Count, you are keeping Miss Halcombe standing,' she said.